Garmin Voice Studio: Turn Right [Morgan Freeman’s Voice]

January 5, 2010 rockman Rockman's Ramblings 1
Garmin Nuvi 1390T GPS navigation device

Garmin Nuvi 1390T GPS navigation device Ok, not exactly. But Garmin just announced that their new Voice Studio software will allow users to record their own voices for navigation prompts and edit them in the software for use on their Nüvi. It is compatible with all nüvis except the nüvi 300 and 600 series. The process of recording the “few dozen” phrases is supposed to take about 30-minutes. As my title suggests, I think it would be cool to have celebrities contribute their voice to the navigation. I’m picturing Morgan Freeman or maybe Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong in character! Ok, that might get old. (Image from Garmin)

Oh, and they also just announced a cool adapter for your car that plugs into the standardized onboard diagnostics port (OBD II) that turns your GPS into a trip computer, monitoring things like RPM’s, temperature, battery voltage, emissions etc. It connects wirelessly to the GPS unit so the wires don’t get in the way of your driving. It will also give you error codes for the check engine light, some with descriptions of the problem. Both technologies will be showcased at this year’s CES in Las Vegas.

[Disclosure] I own a few shares of Garmin stock. [/Disclosure]

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Video: State of Geoweb and Geospatial Technology from Google, ESRI and Autodesk

May 19, 2008 rockman Miscellaneous Comments Off on Video: State of Geoweb and Geospatial Technology from Google, ESRI and Autodesk

The O’Reilly Where 2.0 conference just wrapped up last week in Burlingame, CA. It is a big deal for developers, geographers, GIS developers, GPS equipment manufacturers and anyone else interested in location web services, GIS, mashups, and the so-called Geoweb. There were two presentations by some high profile players that may be of interest to the readers of GeoPrac.net. I have video versions of both after the break.

First, a presentation titled "State of the GeoWeb" given by Google Earth and Maps Director, John Hanke with some help from Jack Dangemond of ESRI. I think it gives you some interesting insights into the direction things are headed, particularly with some of the upcoming releases of ESRI GIS software and the interplay between location data that people have been producing for some time now and new ways of tapping into it using the web. Kind of a long presentation at around 30 minutes.

Second, Geoff Zeiss of Autodesk, Inc. (makers of AutoCad etc.) gives a presentation titled "Convergence of Architectural and Engineering Design and Location Technology". It deals with bridging the information created by different disciplines such as engineers, architects, trades and contractors into something more productive and usable using techniques such as 3D visualization and simulation. Length is approximately 15 minutes.

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